PJM is planning data center expansion projects without community input

On September 9th, PJM’s Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee held a meeting to review PPL’s current supplemental expansion projects for Northeast PA. All projects covered in this meeting are proposed grid expansions for data centers, with a total of 5,500 Megawatts (5.5 Gigawatts) burden on the grid by 2031. 5.5 Gigawatts is enough energy to power over five million households, nearly equivalent to the total number of households in PA at 5.2 million. 

Data centers have become a known culprit in rising energy usage and costs across the country, and could have a severe impact on Pennsylvanians’ electricity bills, which is only one of many concerns communities have about the direct and indirect harms caused by data centers. 

These projects are located in PPL’s transmission zone M-3, with proposed data centers included from Lackawanna County: Archbald, Dorrance, Tresckow, and Big Bass PA. The notes from PJM’s meeting state that, “Stakeholders must submit any comments within 10 days of this meeting in order to provide time necessary to consider these comments prior to the next phase of the M-3 process.”

PSR PA found that “stakeholders,” according to PJM, are ONLY their member companies registered to PJM’s restricted Planning Community forum. There is no access for communities and individuals to add a comment, and when we attempted to register we were unable to gain access as a non-member.

Consider letting PJM’s executives know how you feel about being excluded from commenting on the impacts of these proposed expansion projects. As one of PJM’s critical community stakeholders and customers in the region you should have the right to be heard!